Summer Outing 2015 (Cleveland rail transit & TOD tour) photo gallery

On Aug. 15, 40 members participated in All Aboard Ohio’s 2015 Summer Meeting & Family Outing, which was a guided tour of Cleveland’s 37-mile rail transit system, including several transit-oriented developments (TOD). Thanks again to the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) for sponsoring this tour which attracted visitors from around Ohio.

Attendees were provided with a packet which included an GCRTA all-day pass and a presentation of selected real estate developments and transit projects (10mb download) along the tour. The tour started at All Aboard Ohio’s office at Tower City Center (former Cleveland Union Terminal), then rode the Waterfront Line round trip, Blue Line to Warrensville and return west to East 55th, Red Line east to the new Little Italy station, and west to Hopkins International Airport. The last part included a race between the Red Line train and the HealthLine BRT bus to Tower City, which the train easily won (the bus had 70 blocks to go as the train arrived Tower City!). Attendees returned from the airport on the Red Line to Tower City after a busy fun day.

Forty tour attendees gathered at All Aboard Ohio’s office at Tower City Center for morning refreshments and to pick up their tour packets. (CLICK TO ENLARGE – photo credit “All Aboard Ohio”)

Summer Outing tour attendees rode the Waterfront Line light-rail by transit-supportive real estate development and possible sites for a new multi-modal station designed to unite the existing Cleveland services of Akron Metro RTA, Amtrak, GCRTA, Greyhound, Laketran, Megabus, Portage Area RTA and Stark Area RTA. (CLICK TO ENLARGE – photo credit “All Aboard Ohio”)

Flats East Bank Phase 3 (11-story apartment building over a cinema, grocer, retail etc) will soon rise next to the Waterfront Line light rail. For a map of the built portions of the $750 million Flats East Bank development, see the presentation at the link preceding these photos. (CLICK TO ENLARGE – Courtesy Cleveland Planning Commission)

Tour attendees changed trains at Shaker Square, one of the nation’s first planned TOD’s, from a train bound for the Green Line (in the median of Shaker Blvd) to one bound for the Blue Line (in the median of Van Aken Blvd). (CLICK TO ENLARGE – photo credit “All Aboard Ohio”)

At Warrensville station at the end of the Blue Line, Shaker Heights Planning Director Joyce Braverman displayed RMS Investments’ planned $91 million first phase of the Van Aken District. Streets are being eliminated or relocated this year so TOD construction can start in 2016. (CLICK TO ENLARGE – photo credit “All Aboard Ohio”)

From left in the foreground are Shaker Planning Director Joyce Braverman, All Aboard Ohio Southwest Ohio Director Derek Bauman and Cincinnati Councilman Chris Seelbach share ideas and experiences about transit-supportive real estate development at the Van Aken District site in Shaker Heights. (CLICK TO ENLARGE – photo credit “All Aboard Ohio”)

Thank you GCRTA for giving All Aboard Ohio members a tour of its 4-acre railcar maintenance building Central Rail Facility (at left) next to the East 55th station! (CLICK TO ENLARGE – photo credit “All Aboard Ohio”)

Casey Blaze, GCRTA Rail District Equipment Manager described the various shops within the Central Rail Facility which operates 24 hours a day five days a week, and during daytime hours on weekends. GCRTA’s 30- to 35-year-old trains are maintained here, which includes making some replacement parts in-house as they are no longer available on the market. (CLICK TO ENLARGE – photo credit “All Aboard Ohio”)

GCRTA Central Rail maintenance workers are renovating and modernizing the mid-1980 interiors of Red Line trains. GCRTA can renovate two cars per month, meaning the whole fleet should be done by March 2016. (CLICK TO ENLARGE – photo credit “All Aboard Ohio”)

Rising costs of maintaining the two types of aging trains in GCRTA’s rail fleet mean new railcars are on the horizon. In about 10 years, GCRTA will likely acquire a standardized rail fleet that can serve the low-level platforms of the light-rail Blue, Green and Waterfront lines and the high-level platforms of the heavy-rail Red Line. (CLICK TO ENLARGE – photo credit “All Aboard Ohio”)

Only days after opening for regular service, the AAO tour used the new Little Italy-University Circle station at Mayfield Road amid crowds of people heading to the Feast of the Assumption. This is the scene from the Aug. 11 ribbon-cutting ceremony. (photo courtesy of Mike Collier)

Chris Ronayne, President of University Circle Inc., talks to the AAO tour group during lunch at Constantino’s Uptown grocery store about how new transit services and transit-supportive real estate development have energized University Circle. This includes developers seeking city permission to provide fewer parking spaces than the building code requires. That allows developers and residents to save money. (CLICK TO ENLARGE – photo credit “All Aboard Ohio”)

The tour group split in two at Uptown, a new $110 million TOD (including the Cleveland Institute of Art expansion and the new Museum of Contemporary Art) in University Circle. This new neighborhood was built on a sea of surface parking lots. One group took the Red Line and the other took the HealthLine Bus Rapid Transit in a race to Tower City. (CLICK TO ENLARGE – photo credit “All Aboard Ohio”)

The tour group members who crammed into the HealthLine BRT (pictured) to Tower City lost badly to those who chose the Red Line rail service. The train arrived Tower City with the bus still 70 blocks away. (CLICK TO ENLARGE – photo credit “All Aboard Ohio”)

All Aboard Ohio SW Director Derek Bauman ponders the rail possibilities for Cincinnati while riding a renovated GCRTA Red Line train to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Trains run every 10 minutes during rush hours and every 15 minutes off-peak, with rail service starting at 4 a.m. and ending at 1 a.m. (CLICK TO ENLARGE – photo credit “All Aboard Ohio”)

Arrival at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport station on the GCRTA Red Line. The tour group returned to Tower City Center in downtown Cleveland after having ridden 51 miles of rail lines, hearing three guest speakers and having a good time. We look forward to riding the Cincinnati Streetcar in next years family outing! (CLICK TO ENLARGE – photo credit “All Aboard Ohio”)

Local, greater Cleveland rail transit is fairly good but why not go for the ‘whole McGilla’ and demand High Speed Rail a la Japan or Europe? Ohio/Cleveland has talked about it before Gov. Kasich’s first act as governor was to refuse $40M. HS.. rail federal start-up monies. DOES HE HAVE THE LAST WORD…?
STOP ROLLING OVER TO THE ‘POWERS’ THAT KEEP US BEHIND THE REST…